11th Grade Journalism.
During my junior year in high school I chose to take a journalism class. I knew that I loved to write and I had been thinking of going to college to study journalism. I took this as a great opportunity to learn more in depth what journalism was all about. However, while taking the class I realized I didn’t have a teacher that seemed to like me. When I had to stand and present a project in front of the whole class she would ask me questions that she just knew I wouldn’t be able to answer.
I would stand up noticing my hands growing clammy, my cheeks turning bright pink, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach and that if I opened my mouth nothing would come out. I was always proud of the work I had done just not confident in it. I needed to learn to have confidence in my writings through classes such as journalism. I was dying for my writing to have importance and to be part of the journalism class. I sat in class and looked around, while thinking of what to write. I saw a door in the back corner of the room, when it would open I could see the darkness inside. While I sat wanting to become important, important enough to open that door, someone from class would walk into the dark room and not return for a long time. “What would it be like to be the one who gets to walk in that dark room, for my writing to be so good that I always needed to be at the classroom computers. To be noticed.” I thought to myself.
When it was my turn to write an article to be selected for the school newspaper I felt like jumping for joy and throwing-up all in the same moment. This was huge for me. I couldn’t believe it “I Sarah Nagel an author in the school newspaper!” I thought. I could just see my story on the page already. When I got home from school that day I walked in the front door with my chin up high. I went straight to the Kitchen where my mother had been making Apple Betty dessert for our after school snack. What a perfect day for my favorite dessert. “Mom, I’m writing an article for the school newspaper!!!” I shouted. Then suddenly I realized in that moment how scared and unprepared I felt. While I stood there not really hearing my mother’s reaction to my news I felt stumped. “What am I going to write about?” I was thinking.
Feeling discouraged by this thought I didn’t rush around to get started or to even think about what I was going write about. I guess you can call this phase, denial. After a few days went by my mother sat with me at the kitchen table she handed me a piece of paper and pencil and told me to just start a list of ideas. She got my list started. My only requirement of this assignment was to write something funny, so my mother reminded me of a time I was babysitting my brother and I had completely forgotten about him. This of course, was not funny at the time, but it was when I wrote my article.
This became my topic of choice. I wrote about how I left my three year old little brother at home alone when I was supposed to be taking care of him. First I just began to write everything that I could remember about the incidence on paper. When I completed this I rewrote it adding in more paragraphs and sentence structure. I would constantly go back and read it to myself out loud in order to hear what the reader would hear. This helped me to know where to add in commas and new paragraphs. Then I would take my paper to my parents and they would both proof read it for me to make any corrections. By this time I had a completed article ready to turn in and be judged to enter the newspaper.
I turned in my article on time because I knew how important this paper was to me. Most papers I handed in to my English teachers were late, but this was no regular paper, it was a potential article for the viewing of the student body.
My mind was filled with excitement as I walked down the hall to journalism on the day the newspaper was going to be published. I walked in the room went over to the corner, where the newspapers were sitting. I took a breath followed by a swallow and picked up a paper. As I looked at the front cover I wandered aimlessly to my seat and searched for my chair with my legs as my fingers turned pages and my eyes glanced up and down. Then there it was! My article had been selected for the funny page.
I would stand up noticing my hands growing clammy, my cheeks turning bright pink, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach and that if I opened my mouth nothing would come out. I was always proud of the work I had done just not confident in it. I needed to learn to have confidence in my writings through classes such as journalism. I was dying for my writing to have importance and to be part of the journalism class. I sat in class and looked around, while thinking of what to write. I saw a door in the back corner of the room, when it would open I could see the darkness inside. While I sat wanting to become important, important enough to open that door, someone from class would walk into the dark room and not return for a long time. “What would it be like to be the one who gets to walk in that dark room, for my writing to be so good that I always needed to be at the classroom computers. To be noticed.” I thought to myself.
When it was my turn to write an article to be selected for the school newspaper I felt like jumping for joy and throwing-up all in the same moment. This was huge for me. I couldn’t believe it “I Sarah Nagel an author in the school newspaper!” I thought. I could just see my story on the page already. When I got home from school that day I walked in the front door with my chin up high. I went straight to the Kitchen where my mother had been making Apple Betty dessert for our after school snack. What a perfect day for my favorite dessert. “Mom, I’m writing an article for the school newspaper!!!” I shouted. Then suddenly I realized in that moment how scared and unprepared I felt. While I stood there not really hearing my mother’s reaction to my news I felt stumped. “What am I going to write about?” I was thinking.
Feeling discouraged by this thought I didn’t rush around to get started or to even think about what I was going write about. I guess you can call this phase, denial. After a few days went by my mother sat with me at the kitchen table she handed me a piece of paper and pencil and told me to just start a list of ideas. She got my list started. My only requirement of this assignment was to write something funny, so my mother reminded me of a time I was babysitting my brother and I had completely forgotten about him. This of course, was not funny at the time, but it was when I wrote my article.
This became my topic of choice. I wrote about how I left my three year old little brother at home alone when I was supposed to be taking care of him. First I just began to write everything that I could remember about the incidence on paper. When I completed this I rewrote it adding in more paragraphs and sentence structure. I would constantly go back and read it to myself out loud in order to hear what the reader would hear. This helped me to know where to add in commas and new paragraphs. Then I would take my paper to my parents and they would both proof read it for me to make any corrections. By this time I had a completed article ready to turn in and be judged to enter the newspaper.
I turned in my article on time because I knew how important this paper was to me. Most papers I handed in to my English teachers were late, but this was no regular paper, it was a potential article for the viewing of the student body.
My mind was filled with excitement as I walked down the hall to journalism on the day the newspaper was going to be published. I walked in the room went over to the corner, where the newspapers were sitting. I took a breath followed by a swallow and picked up a paper. As I looked at the front cover I wandered aimlessly to my seat and searched for my chair with my legs as my fingers turned pages and my eyes glanced up and down. Then there it was! My article had been selected for the funny page.
